Whoooheee!!!
Unbelievable! I just posted what I thought of the JAA and JARs and just look at this catfight! And I wasn't even trying to wind anyone up!
While working as an instructor I have flown with pilots trained under more than a dozen regulatory systems, including several JAA states. The British didn't stand out as either particularly bad or good; the only difference with the others seemed to be that at one point they had swotted up an enormous amount of trivia and retained it long enough to pass a slew of written exams - and paid through the nose for doing it. (In my limited experience the Austrians as a nationality were by far the best helicopter pilots). What did stand out about the British-trained pilots was their inflexibility: for instance they had only one way to fly an approach (60 kts to 40 feet, FLARE, PULL), regardless of wind, turbulence, obstacles, etc. When quizzed about this the answer was "the H-V diagram must be respected". It turned out that how this diagram was determined in flight testing (and thus, the limitations on its validity) were not part of their JAA-approved ground school and thus considered irrelevant.
About JAA's supposed "uniform" standards: two pilots holding JAA licenses from other JAA states - and recently gained too, not converted from earlier national ICAO licenses - displayed an alarming lack of knowledge on the aircraft in which they'd passed their flight test. After some gentle probing it transpired that they'd gained their license without ever having received any ground instruction!
autosync, from your posts I gather that your preference for the JAA system is that it keeps you in a job. Why do you need the JAA's help to hold down a job? Can't you do that by yourself? Now, that is a wind-up.